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tv   Special Report With Bret Baier  FOX News  October 1, 2012 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT

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>> greg: i would let him. >> eric: leave it there. preorder greg's book. great book. great guy, great writer. >> bob: have you read it? >> eric: that's it for "the five." thank you for watching. see you tomorrow. >> bret: good evening. i'm bret baier. this is "special report." we have update on the big stories we've been following all day here on fox news channel. first, in a little more than 48 hours, the first presidential debate of 2012 will get underway. just down the road in denver. why are we here? about seven miles southeast in inglewood? folks here recognizing breast cancer awareness month with the pink fountain behind me in city center. part of our continuing series, taking the show on the road, to swing counties around the country. arapahoe is the third largest of 64 counties in colorado. accounts for one-tenth of the state total electorate. this election, it's one of the key areas along with
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neighboring jefferson county in crucial battleground state. that went to barack obama by nine points in 2008. george w. bush by 4-1/2 points in 2004. we have been touring several of the 12 battleground states. as we count down to election day. we have identified more than 30 key swing counties inside those states. based on voting patterns, key issues and demographics. they're marked in yellow on this map. so all of that, that is why we're here. throughout the show tonight we'll bring you what some of the folks we talk with on arapahoe are saying about the race and the issues they care about. >> the national debt is just so overwhelming that we feel that our children, grandchildren are never going to have the opportunity to have lifestyle that we currently have. that is one of the big things. >> you worry about it. it's a concern. >> i own a small business. we had to lay off people.
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we think that colorado needs to get back to its roots, to become republican again. i am hopeful. >> i think i am personal going to obama. i don't think he has had a fair chance yet to really do what he wants to do. that's why i want to go with obama. finish what he started. >> definitely the economy. single parent. so i am very concerned about the job growth. >> i want to vote for somebody i feel like i can trust. and i have confidence in. evening seems murky and tough to decide. undecided. completely undecided. >> i'm undecided. >> the debate will help. >> what do you care about? >> state is going in the wrong direction. get it going the other way.
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>> do you think colorado is a state that will do this? >> i think it will be close. >> bret: the first of three presidential debates will be held wednesday. just up the road from here at university of denver. for senior national correspondent john roberts is tonight. >> ahead of the debate. romney is shifting the focus under a withering critique from fellow republicans he is making the campaign less referendum on the president, more a choice between who has the best policies, to lead the nation in the future. >> i represent a different course. i make sure young people have great jobs tomorrow and bright and prosperous future. that is the difference between us. >> wednesday's debate will focus on domestic policy. romney continues to hamer the president for what he calls a failed foreign policy? an op-ed in today's op-ed journal, romney declared the president is weakening the america's position in the world writing, "by failing to maintain the element of our influence and by stepping away
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from the allies, president obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability. he does not understand in american policy that lax resolve can provoke aggressio aggression. and carriage disorder." after a weekend of debate prep in boston, romney left for denver an wednesday's big event. while the campaign played the game of lowering expectations for the governor. >> obama is a gifted speaker. he has been on the national stage for many years. experienceed debater. he has done the debates before. this is mitt's first time on this stage. >> romney campaign was left to slap itself in the forehead when governor chris christie apparently didn't get the expectations memo. >> wednesday night is the restart of the campaign, i think you will see the numbers start to move right back in the other direction. thursday morning, the entire narrative of the race will change. >> reporter: in truth, debates rarely move polls in a significant ways. one notable exception was in 2000. when -- >> that's what a governor gets to do.
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>> dismissive al gore threw away a five-point lead in the course of three debates. >> romney advisors are just hoping for a solid performance. no knock-outs on wednesday night. >> i don't think one event is going to make or break this campaign. >> romney advisors told me they don't expect that they could level knock-out blow against president obama. the skilled debaters such as he is. always playing the expectation game. bret? >> bret: john, thanks. >> we're just five weeks and one day away from election day. and a little more than 48 hours from the first debate here in colorado. there is more focus than ever on the battleground state, colorado of course one of them. and how the electoral college race is shaping up. join me again today and karl ro senior advisor who is in new york. back in washington, democratic strategist joe trippi. as we do every week we look at the electoral map. info on the key. red states are romney states.
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blue, obama. then the pinkish lean romney. light blue, lean obama. then the yellow states are tossup states. within the margin of error. this is all based on the polls within the last 30 days. okay, karl, what has changed in the last week since we talked? >> we had 46 polls last week in 22 states. four states moved toward president obama and changed status. iowa, ohio, nevada, all battleground states moved from tossup to lean obama. montana moved from romney to lean romney. there were 11 other states then moved toward obama but had no change in status. there were five states that moved toward governor romney. but again had no change in status. >> joe, of those, what is most important? >> i mean the biggest thing is that shift in nevada and ohio. those two in particular. ohio, obviously, a big move. moving it to lean obama, it puts for the first time, i think since we started back in
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april, it puts obama with over the 270 electoral votes. we had that back then. it's coming clear today. that makes states like colorado even more important. and ohio still, it's got -- that is a problem for romney that is now starting to show in the polls. although they came out yesterday saying that obama was only up by four. and had -- the rates were still very much up for grabs. romney people have to hope for that to be true. >> bret: karl, what about that? you know, even the p.p.p., a democratic leaning organization, suggesting some place like ohio is still up for grab. they had it at four. we talked a lot about these polls. and the concern about them. but your take on the battleground states and the state polls in particular. >> yeah. i think we got to approach them with a lot of skepticism. in ohio last week, we had cbs/"new york times" poll saying ten points for obama.
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and a columbus dispatch poll saying nine points. frank newport the head of the gallup organization had a blog posting that was revealing. he said you have to subject the state polls to the judgment of experience. he said for example, take ohio. the president won there by less than five points last time around. this time around, the poll that said he is winning by ten, does it make sense he would do twice as well, the margin is twice as big this time around than it was in 2008 when everybody is pointing to closer election than in 2008. of course not. it doesn't make sense. take this with the nevada and ohio shifts because of outlier polls. p.p.p. interestingly enough had a poll that was the outlier in nevada, plus nine for obama. then two polls in ohio. as a result they move it across the line from tossup to lean obama. i would say this, though. step back just a little bit and look at the arch since april. president obama has gone from
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220 solid states, electoral college votes to 196 today. whereas mitt romney has gone from 135 to 156. this race is up for grabs. battlefield is broader than april. very much up for grabs. >> bret: joe, we have this app we talk about every week on an ipad app that people can get. they can put their own maps in. put them up against your map and karl's map and submit them. people have been doing that. we have one today from connie c. debaca. tell us about that map. >> this is a great map. connie -- it deals with some reality. she gives ohio to obama. what that does, she also puts virginia in the obama column as well. but she still has romney winning this thing with 270 electoral votes. the problem is how she does.
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romney winsness and colorado, both possibilities. but she does this giving romney wisconsin something i think will be a tough, very tough road for romney to pull off. which points out why virginia is so important. why ohio. the 3-2-1 strategy we started with in april. romney has to pull one of those two states out. if he winnings both of them, he is probably president. but this map points to how problematic it is without those two states. >> bret: karl? >> it shows how problematic is it for the president, because i think ohio is going to be up to grabs to the end. but things are starting to look better there. and virginia has been moving in the republican direction. and north carolina, which heretofore was a battleground. widespread acceptance president won't carry that. we never talked about indiana which he won last time around and is in the republican column. this will be a close, close race. everything that each campaign does, each day in terms of motivating its supporters,
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identifying and persuading new supporters and getting them out to vote will matter. close contest. look at the map. new hampshire is likely to end up in the romney column. in recent weeks has been moving that direction. now a tossup state. i subject it is going to do a good turn for a neighbor by going for romney. >> bret: i have 30 seconds left. the impact of this debate here in colorado, karl, then joe, how it affects the electoral map? >> you know, look, my sense on debates is most of the time, not all the time, the arc of the narrative over the course of the three presidential debates is what matters. that is what happened in 2000. 1984 is perhaps the exception. after the second debate on reagan's famous comment i will not use my opponent's youth and inexperience settled the issue. most of the time people look at the debate and come to make decision at the end of it. who wins each one matters but all of them taken together matters. >> bret, both sides partisans
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are going to be watching to cheer their guy on. i think romney has better chance to benefit slightly, being on the stage with the president holding his own traditionally helped the challenger in the first debate. i agree with karl. arc of all three will decide it. >> bret: as always, thank you. see you next week, guys. >> good to be with you. >> thanks. >> bret: since we talked to karl and joe about six hours ago a new poll changed one state. moving iowa to lean obama back to tossup. coming up, shocking new details about operation "fast and furious." thousands of additional guns found in mexico tracked back to the u.s. government. dozens of them believe to be used in violent crimes. >> who is going to pay for this? >> are military voters being treated fairly? >> it's really shocking, but most of the fingers point straight to the pentagon.
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>> mu afghanistan policy questions. >> terrorism has not gone away. it has increased. >> brit hume's analysis of the president's economic message. arapahoe county is largely suburban area southeast of denver, home to aerospace engineers and business managers and other professionals. there are some very affluent areas but for the most part it's the upper tier of the middle class. in 2008, barack obama carried this county by more than 35,000 votes. four years before that, george w. bush carried it by more than 9,000. the unemployment rate here is the national average. but it is below the state unemployment rate. another interesting stat about arapahoe county, 54% of the registered voters are women. one of the widest gender gaps in any county in colorado. which is why the obama campaign is hitting this area hard with campaign ads about women's issues. "special report" continues after the break. [ male announcer ] there are only so many foods
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into a high-tech masterpiece? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. >> bret: welcome back. we'll have more from colorado shortly. but first, we go about 1,000 miles southwest of here to southern california. correspondent william la jeunesse has obtained new information that the obama administration tried to keep secret regarding operation "fast and furious." it includes just who has paid the price with the now infamous gun tracking program.
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>> a mother cries for her son, one of 18 killed in drug rehab center in juarez, mexico. months later, hit men massacre 16 at teenager's birthday party. weapons used in both attacks traced to operation fast and furious. >> they are waiting for an answer. they want to know what happened. and why they define stop these guns from leighing the united states and enending up. >> spanish language network univision and fox news obtained list of 100,000 weapons recovered in mexico. compared those serial numbers with the 2000 guns sold in fast and furious. nearly two dozen matched. connecting an untold number of injuries and fatalities to the u.s. program. >> this woman lost two sons to fast and furious guns. >> they don't know what to do.
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we interview them and they say who is going to pay for this? >> it could be the u.s. government. should the family of border agent brian terry prevail in their wrongful death claim. >> the the people can go in the united states. report of the lawyers. >> the government has remained silent willing to criticize the northern neighbor. >> they are rich with the benefit they obtain from being in politics. >> the dock membertary puts human -- documentary puts human face on american political scandal but it's not likely to influence the house investigation of "fast and furious" or attorney general eric holder. >> more than 1,000 "fast and furious" guns remain unaccounted for so casualties in mexico are likely to continue. univision featured a second gun sting, that allegedly supplied guns to colombia an
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honduras in 2010. bret? >> william la jeunesse live in los angeles. thank you. we'll stay on the story. still ahead, they fight for the country and your right to vote. why aren't all of them voting themselves? first, debate prep vegas style. throughout the show, more from arapahoe residents. >> i vote for education. without that, without having smart kids available to the business community to employ in the business community and drive american innovation, we're lost. geopolitically. >> i think it's take an backseat to the economy. and to foreign affairs. so that said i would vote for obama because i think he is much less incendiary. in foreign affairs. i think he would do things rather than ignite fires. >> you made up your sunshine
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>> yes. >> okay. >> what about you? >> i don't register. >> no? >> no. >> conspiracy theory guy. my vote doesn't count. >> i think the overall leadership in the country is lacking. i think it's a big deal. the american public doesn't pay that much attention to what is going on. >> have you decide which had way you're going? >> absolutely. >> which way? >> i'm voting for romney. >> sold. no doubt in your mind? >> no doubt in my mind. he can bring us leadership. lot . but today...( sfx: loud noise of large metal object hitting the ground) things have been a little strange. (sfx: sound of piano smashing) roadrunner: meep meep. meep meep? (sfx: loud thud sound) what a strange place. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
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>> bret: welcome back to inglewood, colorado. arapahoe county. the first presidential debate down the road in denver. a couple of states away in nevada the president is preparing for wednesday's first
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chief white house correspondent ed henry is traveling with the president. >> reporter: debate prep for president obama in the comfort of lake las vegas, a swank resort community that boasts megamansions from celebs like celine dion and microcosm of nevada's boom and bust. it was rocked by the housing crisis. families lost homes, while expensive hotels like the ritz carlton vaulted. though the development is starting to climb back. >> i just want to get back to work. i don't care who is the president. >> down the road in henderson, harsher reality. abandoned shopping centers, foreclosed homes and voters like kenneth may has been looking for work for three long years. >> i'm a democrat and i'm leaning toward obama of course. if romney has a great plan to get me back to work to what i'm good at and what i know i can do, i'm all for it. it all depends. this debate will kind of tell me a lot. >> i don't think he has done
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anything to create jobs in nevada. he made it well known when he was originally elected for people not to come to nevada and spend their money. investor that relies on people to come to state and spend their money was a slap in the face. >> the president continues to make the case his policies are slowly helping rebuild the middle class. >> it took us a bunch of years to get us in the mess and it will take a few more to get us out. >> that seems to be selling here where he has a slim four-point lead over romney. 49% to 45%. romney's uphill climb is reflected in the recent marist poll. among likely voters in nevada on the question of who will do a better job handling the economy, romney has a one-point lead. 48% to 47%. with 5% unsure. >> the president drew more than 11% people to a late sunday night rally. where he tried to down play expectations about the debate. >> who is going to put the
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most points on the board? [ chanting ] no, no. governor romney, he is a good debater. i'm just okay. >> the president is keeping a low profile wile he preps with senator john kerry who is playing mitt romney. but he just stopped by his local cal campaign office and te president told volunteers they're making me do my hom homework. >> bret: ed henry with the president in las vegas. thanks. stocks were mixed today. dow gained 78. s&p 500 finished ahead four. nasdaq fell 3. bring in senior political analyst brit hume from washington with analysis of what the president has been saying on the campaign trail about the economy. good evening. >> hi there, bret. a central premise of the obama campaign is he inherited an economy in freefall. pulled it back from the brink and set it on the right path. but consider this. the economy fell in to recession more than a year before mr. obama took office.
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by the time he was inaugurated the worst of it was over. the economy was still shrinking but the steepest decline had occurred in the time quarter of 2008. it shrank less in first quarter of 2009. by june of 2009 it began to grow again, marking the official end of the recession. mind you this occurred before almost any of the massive stimulus spending mr. obama signed in to law had taken effect. yes, you might say in terms of the job losses the worst was still to come when mr. become become came in. that is not so either. more than half the 8.7 million jobs lost as a result of the recession had been lost by inauguration day. the president inherited an economy still in recession all right. but the recovery came before the policies could take effec effect. remember this. deep recession including those in financial crisis lead to sharp recoveries but this has been the weakest recovery since world war ii.
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>> bret: you have covered a lot of debates. you're out for wednesday's to be on the panel but what do you think of this debate and how much the need can move if governor romney holds his own in the first debate? >> there is not much history of debates moving the needle much but it's interesting to see if governor romney can do something he needs to do, get across to people he is the man to make the economy an begin to really vibrate again. do it concisely and specifically. that is a challenge. but to stand next to obama for the first time on eke with footing can help him. in battleground state he is is down everywhere. >> bret: see you out here. we're giving the grapevine the night off to bring you more news. first, why members of the military may sit out the election or be forced to. then we put you on the battlefield. in afghanistan.
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>> we are leaning romney. we think people want to vote for romney and they're not encouraged by what the current president has done. romney needs to make the case strongly and articulately to get people really fired up a behind him. >> in arapahoe county specifically? >> all around colorado. >> economy, economy, economy. >> bret: that's your baby, i know. your dad says the economy is important. what were you saying? >> i would say i would have rather them pick somebody besides romney. however, when it comes down to election day, i'm looking for somebody other than obama. >> you are? that is what is driving you? >> yes. yeah. other than obama, i'm railly, i'm not appreciating the
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welcome back to arapahoe county, colorado. we're 48 hours from the first presidential debate. down the road in denver, from domestic matters in the university of denver, colorado has a significant military footprint. five air force installations. and one army base are here. many of the poom who fight so we have the right to vote may not take advantage of it myselfs. tonight we look at drop in absentee ballot request by members of the military. good evening. >> the head of a non-profit that works to boost voting rates among military personnel chocked up this year's plunge to bureaucratic inertia at the department of defense. >> face it, the pentagon does a lot of things really well in keeping us safe. sometimes some of the social issues it really just doesn't have the motivation that it
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has with other issues. part of it is because we're focused to keep america safe. i get that. >> in florida, absentee ballot request in florida were less than half the total. in virginia, they are at 1% of the 2008 levels. in ohio, north carolina, this year's request are one-tenth. the pentagon has not spent estimated 15 to 20 million per needed to establish the voting assistance offices that the d.o.d. is required by law to set up at all installations. >> it's the best it has been. we have the meth and means at the disposal, great website with online wizard to walk
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folks through. we have static download. go to ftvap.gov or hero's vote.org. >> three american troops were killed in eastern afghanistan today. that puts the death pole in afghanistan -- the death toll in afghanistan over 2,000. national security correspondent jennifer griffin shows us the video of a firefight from the pentagon. >> you think most u.s. troops killed in afghanistan die if fire fights like this recording on a helmet camera last april.
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now there is a new weapon. insider account. >> i'm mad at hell to be honest. we'll get after this. it reverberates everywhere. across the united states. we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. we're not willing to be murdered for it. >> the allies pushing the death toll in afghanistan over 2,000. today, a bomber dressed in an afghan police uniform killed 14 people including three american troops in a province. >> iraq, the signature weapon system we haven't seen before was the i.e.d. we had to adjust to that. here is signature attack we're going to see the insider attack. >> they offered bleak assessment. >> the reason for the nato and american intervention of afghanistan was terrorism.
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terrorism has not gone away. it's increaseed. >> they hinted that the timeline for withdrawal could be sped up. he said from now to the end of 2014, our troops can "redeploy, take on other tasks or even withdraw. " bret? >> bret: at the pentagon. thank you. we're 20 days out from the deadly terrorist attack at the u.s. mission in benghazi, libya, that killed the ambassador an three others there and there are still no f.b.i. agents on the ground there. meantime, congressional source tells fox news, uav assets in the region have been repositioned since the attack to establish better situational awareness. we're learning that the compound was attacked on three sides. with heavy weapons as we were reporting in the first days. the presidential candidates are getting ready for the debate wednesday. we'll talk about that. with the fox all-stars and what needs to happen when we come back.
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romney, she a good debater. i'm just okay. but what i'm most concerned about is having a serious discussion about what we need to do to keep the country growing, and restore security for hard-working americans. >> president obama is a very, he is a very gifted speaker. the man has been on the national stage for many years. he is an experienced debater
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to. he has done these debates before. this is mitt's first time on this kind of a stage. i think what people will see who is mitt romney? what kind of a president is he going to be? what are the choices i have? >> bret: president obama and congressman paul ryan talking about the upcoming debate. just down the road in denver on wednesday. let's talk about that and some of the issues on the table. bring in the panel from washington. rick klein, senior washington editor for abc news. a.b. stoddard, associate editor of the hill. syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. charles, you heard the back and forth on the sunday shows. what about the setup to this debate? what needs to happen and what is being talked about? >> it looks ridiculous. each side is pretending that the other can't even speak english. obviously, i don't think it will have any effect. romney did do rather well in his debate. he got better. he's done a lot of them, but people are saying well, obama hand debated in all this time. obama is really good.
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he did come out of nowhere. he beat the clinton machine. he did it in part in his debate, oratory. he will be strong. his one weak point is he is thin skinned. you o the press conference. if romney can manage to get under his skin in some way, that happened in 2008. one or two of the clinton debates. i think it could puncture that aura that obama had. i don't think there is any way to be decisive. one thing that is going to help romney simply being on the stage is always true of the challenger. just being on the same stage as the president instantly raises your stature. if he can hold his own and perhaps prevail to the minor extent he will reverse momentum which has been rather negative. last couple of weeks. >> bret: a.b., the -- liste listen, the economy, there are still a lot of concerns. just talking to folks in arapahoe county county there are concerns long-term and
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concerns about the national debt and deficit. concerns about jobs specifically in colorado. if you look at the markets, from the time the president got in office until now, you can see the chart that we have. it just scales up and up an up. the administration also has a couple of positives in the housing. seeing positive sign in recent week and month. out thing private sector employment growing. they are but on the negative side. you have this list of stories that they're dealing with. the libya fall-out. the new stuff about fast and furious that william la jeunesse had tonight. you had the slow g.d.p. growth and revision down to 1.3. continued unemployment. the afghanistan policy questions i'm ran threat. then the u.s. -israel relationship. these are constant stories. what about the back and forth and putting it all in perspective? >> on friday, there will be another jobs report that isn't good enough. i don't think we will see
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change in the jobless picture either this friday or friday november 2. before the election. i think people made up their mind about the economy a while ago. the president has we know is ahead in the key battleground states where the election will be decided. but that is this week. i do think that he has been ahead, despite poor economy. romney could put in a strong performance standing up against the president, holding his own. in the clip you played with the false humility of how romney is so good. i was kind of okay. he is contemptuous of romney and there is a good chance he reveals that in the debate on wednesday. the libya story is bad for the administration. if there was intentionm misleading of public will be damaging for him. romney needs to play it correctly.
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sell himself. leave it to surrogates. fast and furious, bret, there are more stories developments like today. i don't think it has entered the presidential campaign debate. i don't think it will change undecided voters' minds. it will be significant if obama is re-elected next year. >> bret: rick? >> if it was going to be just the economy, stupid, we would have seen that in the polling. people factored in, to large extent what they feel about the economy and they have decided either you go with the president or you're not. that is not enough. i think we were stupid to think it's just the economy, stupid. the through line with the stories that you cite there is an argument here to make about the president's management and leadership. that is the thing that unites all we talk about with the foreign policy and domestic policy and fast and furious. if romney were to make the turn, natural closing place for the argument to be. i've been making the case about the economy for yea
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year-and-a-half. but it's more than that. that is the romney to look for in debate stage wednesday night. you have to be aggressive and pivot point of the campaign. there hasn't been storylines breaking romney's way for the last couple of weeks. >> bret: yeah. gdp revision on 1.3% didn't get a ton of coverage. but a huge deal. >> enormous story. at this point in the recession, i mean if you look -- of the recovery, if you look at the reagan recovery, the economy was exploding 6.7% increase in growth. we have deceleration. 2.4% in 2010. 1.8% last year. for the first quarter of this year, 2%. now this revision downward. to 1.3%, anemic an indicates we are actually heading to a stall. that is something that romney ought to highlight because the media certainly haven't.
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>> bret: charles, a.b., rick, thank you from washington. next up, we will turn to journalists from here in colorado. on the presidential race. arapahoe county and what colorado means in the big picture. bob, these projections... they're... optimistic. productivity up, costs down, time to market reduced... those are good things. upstairs, they will see fantasy. not fantasy... logistics. ups came in, analyzed our supply chain, inventory systems... ups? ups. not fantas who would have thought? i did. we did, bob. we did. got it.
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>> bret: welcome back to arapahoe county, colorado. we are at jack grill in littleton to talk to a local panel about the situation on the ground politically here in this swing county. joining us now, john ingold from the "denver post."
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stephen tubbs, news radio 850 koa. eli stobles, fox 31 denver. thank you for being here. we have don't have a uniform code. there was no, even though we are all wearing the same thing. listen, it's very close. depending on the poll you look at recently, it's still just a few points margin of error. this county arapahoe county went for president obama, eli, big, back in 2008. 55%. john mccain, 42%. but colorado switched back and forth, went to president obama 2004 to president bush in 2000 president bush. what is this place now and what is the biggest issue here for folks you hear? >> colorado is a huge bellwether in the intermountain west. it has been for a few cycles. it's a big bellwether for which way the state will go. not always a swing county. it was conservative going back ten years or so.
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new population in arapahoe county has changed things. folks are moving from other states in colorado. it has a little more liberal in the suburbs here. it's a pocketbook issues, the same thing that you hear in all the swing states. soccer moms and families. who worry about making the budget and holing on to their home. >> bret: both candidate, president and romney have been here a number of times. clearly the campaigns believe that this state is within both grasps. >> absolutely. you look at the amount of time that president obama has spent, be here a couple of days from now for the debate. romney, the same thing. you cannot go an hour without seeing three or four political ads. >> a big portion is ready to vote now. >> early voting now. >> early voting and mail-in voting. they had 1.6 million active full-time mail-in voters.
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so on october 15, their ballots are going in the mail. they will get them starting the next day. they can cast them and turn them . i mean that is big given that there is maybe 2.6 million voters in total in 2008. >> bret: do you see an issue that is, that either campaign is really grasping on to, to move the needle? >> certainly, i mentioned jobs and the economy are big here. just like they are across the rest of the country. >> bret: unemployment in arapahoe is where the national ample is, 8.2. >> sure. romney has gone to areas where unemployment is higher to feel his message will resonate better there. >> bret: women's issues. it seems like the percentage of women voting in colorado and maybe even in this area in particular is higher. >> women vote more than men do in colorado. last time they were 53% of the vote. but that is the roadmap. that is the model that the democrats used in the state. they call it the bennett
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model. senator bennett won this way winning big with the republican women and women overall two years ago. the model goes back several cycles past to 2004. democrats have had a successful strategy of winning republican women because they might be sort of a push on economic issues. democrats picked them off by talking about sorm issues and the women healthcare. that is something they really feel resonates in suburbs like arapahoe county where you have the soccer moms and they're on the fence and they feel like that is an issue to push them off the fence. >> growing hispanic population in colorado, as in much of the west. how does it factor in? >> it does. you have seen in certain portions of colorado, you have seen the ad campaign if you will. romney has certainly had ads in spanish. he has had his son who speaks fluent spanish campaigning in colorado. it depends, this area where we are now is not heavily hispanic. back to the issues that matter to everyone, wan ten-mile radius of here, you have people who have lost 200 to
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300,000 in value to their homes. it's all about the economy in this portion of colorado. >> bret: do you agree with that? >> yeah. sure. hispanic vote to go back to that is absolutely interesting in colorado. there is long standing hispanic communities in colorado. southern part of colorado, there is communities that have been here since before the nation was a nation. so there is a lot of nuance in the hispanic vote. they tend to vote for the democrats. in fact we did a poll that showed 20-point gap in favor of his obama with hispanics voters. >> do you see enthusiasm on the republican side in all this stuff about the polls and how romney is trailing. do you sense on either side there is a get out the vote effort here? >> it does depend where you are. neighborhood by neighborhood. it is a state that there are base counties and swing counties. where we are now is a swing county. you going to see the yard signs from both candidates. it does come down to which
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candidate makes the sale in those counties. both sides in the base area are motivated to get out and vote. if there is a shrinking middle, the base matters more. but in these counties, it's about who wins those people who are still on the fence, whether it's moms, whether it's families, you know, whoever it is. latino voters. every little vote could make the difference at the end of the day. >> bret: eli, stephan, john, thank you. very interesting. we'll be back from arapahoe county right after this. ♪ ♪ ♪ hi dad. many years from now, when the subaru is theirs... hey. you missed a spot. ...i'll look back on this day and laugh. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.
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>> bret: welcome back to colorado, again. that's breast cancer awareness fountain behind us. one correction we want to tell you about. in james rosen's report tonight about the decline in the number of requests for absentee ballots from the military. our graphic had one of the web sites you can go to for information as fvap.org. it's actually fvap.gov. james said it correctly but the graphic on the screen was wrong. it's fvap.gov. finally tonight, an invitation to stay with us as "special report" continues tomorrow and wednesday from colorado. more debate preview on tuesday's program live from the mile high city. wednesday we have live coverage of the first presidential debate from the university of denver. a special thanks to the city of ingle

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